The Social Security Administration announced Friday that it would begin accepting benefit claims related to same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court in June found the heart of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be unconstitutional. It ruled that the federal government cannot treat same-sex marriages approved by some states any differently than heterosexual marriages.

The ruling affects more than 1,000 federal regulations affecting everything from tax breaks to entitlement benefits.

Prior to the ruling, an individual in a same-sex marriage was unable to claim survivor benefits from Social Security when a spouse died and a couple was unable to claim a 50-percent Social Security marriage bonus to their retirement benefits. .

The President has directed the Attorney General to work with other members of his Cabinet to review the recent Supreme Court decision and determine its impact on Federal benefit programs  including benefits administered by Social Security  to ensure that we implement the decision swiftly and smoothly, Social Security Administration spokesman Mark Hinkle said.

He said the agency was working with the Justice Department to revise its regulations.

We are taking claims now from individuals who believe they may be eligible for Social Security benefits. We will process these claims as soon as we have finalized our instructions, Hinkle said.

The DOMA ruling could end up reducing the federal budget deficit even though there will likely be an increase in Social Security spending. Most high-income married couples face a tax penalty when filing tax returns jointly.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last looked at the issue in 2004 and has not done so since. CBO said at the time that allowing gay marriage could reduce the deficit by up to $10 billion over the following ten years.

CBOs report predicted that most same-sex marriage would feature couples where both individuals qualify for Social Security benefits independently. Such couples would not receive the 50-percent spousal bonus and therefore would not trigger increased spending in that category.

liberaltarians will be happy with this but won’t post on here knowing this is a conservative website, instead they will wait for the next election and use our sites and our platform and our nomination process to push their crap.

So I take it this law only applies to those who think they’re married in places like MA and places like my state FL won’t be bale to get SS as they’re not married.

If marriage was really what these lot want ten why do we now see an influx of these people moving to places like MA and out of the south?
No they still move out of MA and then move to the south telling us they’re married , ER NO YOU ARE NOT YOU FOOLS, and then demand they should have state law changed

Exactly. They all showed up to bash conservatives for wanting to keep DOMA because ‘DOMA’ violated the constitution. We knew the government in power would pull this crap instantly as soon as DOMA got canned. Now those same liberaltarians are gone.

29
posted on 07/12/2013 6:02:29 PM PDT
by JCBreckenridge
("we are pilgrims in an unholy land")

I work on a military base as a federal employee, a federal employee who just spent his first furlough sitting around not getting paid. I got an email from what is called the AMS Mail Robot. I wish I could post the contents of the email here but I can't because of this statement at the bottom of the email:

Caution: This message may contain competitive or other non-public information protected by federal law from disclosure and not intended for disclosure outside official government channels. Do not disseminate this message without the approval of the originating office.

So, I while I can't post the contents of the actual message, what I will say is that the contents of the email basically say that the OPM will now extend benefits to eligible Federal Civilian employees who have legally married a spouse of the same sex. This message came out on Thursday.

Can you explain how DOMA was NOT Unconstitutional? Just point to the Article/Section/Clause. Mine might be a little outdated, but A1S10C1 specifically relates to contracts; any adult can make whatever contract they wish with whomever. That requires NO input from gov’t, nor yourselves.

See, it’s my contention, if gov’t were actually contained by A1S8, this would not even be an issue. There would be NO S.S/Medicare/etc. As (L) would actively abolish the 16th, there would be no social engineering vis a vi the tax code by the gov’t as well.

Just because it’s ‘my side’ doing the deed, doesn’t make it any less fascist.

34
posted on 07/12/2013 7:55:43 PM PDT
by i_robot73
(We hold that all individuals have the Right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives - LP.org)

This is actually not true in the slightest. Please show where in the constitution it says this.

Not all the laws in the united states postdate the consitution. Some of them predate the constitution. Marriage, Habeaus Corpus, and trial by jury are three parts of the English common law and were the law in the English colonies prior to the formation of the United States.

The English Common Law definition of marriage? One man and one woman for life. Reynolds vs the US goes on the describe how the role of the federal government is to defend this definition of marriage, by barring polygamy. This is the same reasoning behind (as we see), spousal visas.

Thanks to liberaltarians like yourself - you’ve just opened the door to transform the US into marriage tourism for the rest of the world. You’ll see homosexual men and woman around the world with official grand spanking new - American citizenship.

The federal government does have a constitutional role in regulating marriage.

35
posted on 07/12/2013 8:01:43 PM PDT
by JCBreckenridge
("we are pilgrims in an unholy land")

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